Unfriended (5 page)

As Schuyler leaned over and squinted down at the picture, Ruth smiled at me. “Talk to you later,” she said.

“Talk to you soon,” I replied, completing our traditional goodbye. I stood, rolled up my towel, and stuffed it into my canvas bag. As I watched, Ruth edged her towel closer to Schuyler’s, so that before long, the strip of white sand where my towel had been had totally disappeared. The sight of this bothered me for a moment, but then I told myself that I was being ridiculous. After all, these were my best friends. We had all been through so much, I knew nothing could damage our friendship now.

As I headed to the parking lot, my phone beeped with a Constellation update. I looked down at the screen and saw that Tricia Evans had just arrived at the beach.

I dropped my phone back into my bag and looked around for Tricia. She went to Hartfield High, so none of us had known her before this summer. Lisa had met Tricia at the beach a few weeks back, when they’d bonded over the fact that they’d both been wearing T-shirts with French phrases written on them. And ever since then, she’d been hanging out with us pretty regularly.

“Madness!” I heard a voice call across the parking lot.

I glanced to my left and saw Tricia hurrying toward me. Tricia was big on nicknames, and seemed to be constantly trying out a new one on me whenever I saw her. I had a feeling this one might not stick, though. At least, I hoped not.

“Hey,” I called. When she reached me, she shoved her sunglasses on top of her head and pulled out
a pack of strawberry-mint Orbit. Tricia was going into her senior year, like the rest of us, and she was pretty, with light brown hair and gray eyes. Today, she was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a wooden horse, and the words
HHS Trojan POWER
! beneath it.

I couldn’t help but feel a little bit relieved that she had shown up. Since I’d been spending so much of my time with Nate, the fact that Tricia was hanging out with us helped to alleviate any lingering guilt I might have had about ditching my friends.

“I saw on Constellation that you guys were all here,” Tricia said. Her eyes traveled down to my beach bag and the keys in my hand, and she frowned. “But maybe I’m too late.”

“No,” I said, pointing to where my friends sat on their towels. “Everyone else is still there. I just had to leave early.”

“Oh,” Tricia said, raising an eyebrow at me. “Got a big date with the boyfriend?”

I smiled without even meaning to. It was just what happened when I thought of Nate—like Pavlov’s dog, who had been trained to think that food was coming whenever he heard a bell ring. I nodded, then glanced over at the line of cars heading out of the beach. “I should actually get going….”

She winked at me. “Gotcha,” she said. “I totally understand. But I e-mailed you a link to this really awesome site. Let me know what you think, okay?”

“Sure,” I said, already taking a few steps toward
my car—Judy, my Jetta (aka Judy Jetta-son). “See you around, Tricia.”

“Not if I see you first!” she called back with a cheerful wave.

I smiled and hurried to my car. When I got there, I looked across the parking lot once more. Tricia was rolling out her towel as Lisa held out the magazine to her, and Schuyler was returning to the group, balancing two containers of French fries. I looked at my friends for just a moment, then put my sunglasses back on and opened the car door, squinting a little against the sinking sun.

When I got home, I slammed the door and dropped my beach bag by the stairs. I was running much later than anticipated, as the one-lane road that led from the beach to Putnam’s main road had been totally jammed. And I now had only about twenty minutes to wash the sand out of my hair and try to make myself look like I hadn’t spent the entire afternoon lying out in the sun. Luckily, no one was home to catch me in a conversation or distract me.

My mother, CFO of Pilgrim Bank, had left for the UK last week to sort out the details of the merger of her bank and some British bank. She had covered the fridge with to-do lists and reminders that were actually a pretty sad indication of what she thought of the competence level of my father and me. Most of them said things like TRASH NEEDS TO BE TAKEN OUT and IF YOU TURN ON STOVE, DON’T FORGET TO TURN IT OFF and DON’T DRINK MILK THAT’S EXPIRED.

She had thought she’d be gone only a few days, but apparently, negotiations were dragging on. I tried not to sound too happy about this when she called to tell me, but I actually was. Because my mother’s absence meant that there was absolutely nobody paying attention to what I was doing.

My father, normally the head sportswriter for the
Putnam Post
, had taken a summer sabbatical to write a book about some famous old-timey baseball scandal. He now seemed to spend most of his waking hours writing in his study, at the library, or driving to and from Cooperstown, in upstate New York, where the Baseball Hall of Fame is located. When he was home, he seemed to be in some kind of a fugue baseball state, wandering around muttering statistics, and not noticing when I came home at night.

And since my Demon Spawn brother, Travis (though, admittedly, he hadn’t been
quite
as bad lately), was away for the entire summer, there was nobody hanging around to tattle and remind my distracted father that normally I did have a curfew, and it actually wasn’t three
a.m.
Travis was currently away at a camp in the Pocono Mountains, working as a counselor-in-training, and was then going to spend the second half of the summer at an art camp in South Carolina.

In my room, my pink laptop beckoned temptingly from my bed. But I kept my resolve strong, walked past it, and took the World’s Fastest Shower. Then I got changed into that night’s date outfit—a jean miniskirt and a flowy white top—and looked in the mirror. Despite
Schuyler’s best efforts, I had managed to get a little bit of a tan, which was set off by the white top. I smoothed back my straight, light brown hair—my bangs had
finally
grown out, thank gawd—and leaned forward to examine my eye makeup. In the past, I hadn’t worn much makeup at all, but recently I had gotten really into what I called “a slightly more defined eye” and Lisa called “far too much watching of Taylor Swift videos.” It had taken a lot of trial and error—and eye makeup remover—but I’d finally gotten the hang of it, and I really liked the effect.

I was just looking for my lip gloss when my phone beeped with a text. Thinking it might be Nate, I picked it up from my dresser immediately.

INBOX 1 of 30
From: Kittson
Date: 6/20, 5:45
P.M.

MADISON. I can see you’re at home. Go online— I want to iChat with you.

My Constellation must have updated. Knowing from experience that resistance was futile, I crossed over to my bed and booted up my laptop.

Kittson Pearson had become one of my close friends, against all odds and my own expectations. She was one of the most popular girls in school, and had dated Justin after me. But in the wake of my hacking—and after we weathered Promgate together—she’d become a good friend. She was spending the summer in the Hamptons,
much to the dismay of her boyfriend, semi-reformed class troublemaker Glen Turtell, and I found myself missing her more than I’d thought I would. I had a feeling she would have helped me with the eyeliner thing, for example.

Once my computer booted up, I clicked on my iChat. While I waited for it to load, I checked my Gmail and saw the e-mail that Tricia had mentioned. I clicked on the link, but it just led me to an ERROR screen. I tried again, and after a moment, the same screen loaded. Figuring that Tricia must have copied the link wrong, I shrugged and brought up iChat again.

“Finally!” Kittson said as she appeared on my screen, wearing a hot-pink bikini and sitting in a room that appeared to be mostly decorated with wicker.

“Hey,” I started, but at that moment Kittson’s image froze for a few seconds before coming back to life again.

“What’s up with your iChat?” she asked, peering at me and wrinkling her nose. “You’re all weird and jerky.”

I sighed. A few weeks ago, my parents had decided to install a bunch of new parental online controls. From what I had gleaned, it was due to some of Travis’s recent internet searches, but I had not wanted to learn any more about it than that. I figured the controls were probably what was slowing down my internet connection—making this just one more way that my brother was still managing to interfere in my life.

Kittson came back into focus. The connection seemed better now, and I hoped it wouldn’t give me any more problems. “So what’s up?” I asked, glancing involuntarily at the clock at the top of my screen, hoping that whatever it was, it could be summed up quickly. I didn’t want to keep Nate waiting.

“Nothing,” she said, leaning forward and looking closely at me. “But what is going on with your eyeliner? I
love
it.”

From Kittson, this was high praise indeed, and in the small screen that reflected my own image, I could see that I was smiling. “Thanks,” I said. “It’s just something I’m trying.”

“I approve,” she said, nodding gravely. “I’ve been telling you forever that you should do something bolder with your look.”

I couldn’t exactly recall that, and was about to say as much, when from downstairs, I heard the doorbell ring. “I have to go,” I said. “Nate’s here.”

Kittson shook her head. “Believe me, it’s good to keep a guy waiting,” she said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, trying to keep myself from smiling, “but is everything okay?”

Kittson looked like she was about to say something, but then shook her head. “Yeah,” she said. “I was just bored and wanted to talk, that’s all.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow?” I asked.

“Sure,” Kittson said, examining her nails. “I might not be around, but if I am, I’ll answer.” Then she signed
off without saying goodbye, something I’d grown used to by now from her.

The iChat screen froze once more before coming back to life again. I made a mental note to tell my father about it when he reappeared. Then I shut my computer off and headed downstairs to meet my boyfriend.